It’s been a busy time for me lately. Many things happening and I’ve just been trying to keep up. Things have calmed down a bit now though and I feel that I should share the events of the last while to give those interested my point of view of recent times.

I’ll start three months ago: late June. I’ve been working on a crazy idea in my spare time for the last five and half months and now it’s creeping into my actual working time. I have a photography business that’s in its second year of operation and have had it running out of a new studio for about ten months. The idea, a Rube Goldberg machine, was a long shot in the minds of most people. I had enough faith to start the project and had to do my best to keep that faith as there was no turning back at this point (it wasn’t always easy). The goal was getting the business’ name out there as quickly as possible. Things were going well (business wise), but they could have been going better and I’m an impatient person. At this point in time we were gearing up to shoot the Rube fairly soon. Thoughts that were running through my head constantly resembled “will this get any hits?”, “how are we even going to shoot this?”, “I’m tired”, “what happens after it goes out?”.

It was a stressful period leading up to shooting and the 99 takes it took to complete the job didn’t help at all. Perhaps one of the most difficult periods was immediately after shooting. The time between editing and releasing the footage. We wanted to get it trending if at all possible which meant releasing it on a weekend, preferably a Sunday. Due to some holidays sending people out of town and thusly away from computers, we opted to wait two weeks to make it live. A nervous time to say the least. Finally we launched and seemed to get circulation going. I was quite pleased despite the hit count at the time (which was about 1% of the actual number of hits thanks to a youtube glitch that was later revealed to have started the same time we made our video public).

So at this point – mid July – I’m happy the video is out, but also focused on getting back to work. Our video was born into the world and really couldn’t be mothered in any way so it made no sense sitting around waiting for something to come of it. The best thing to do was to pretend it didn’t exist and carry on as such. I came into the situation a 27-year-old with a business that I was already feeling fortunate to have and that’s how I wanted to come out of it. The emotions immediately following the Rube’s release, despite trying to have a nonchalante attitude, were anything but. I knew it had some potential to change business, however little. Logic says there’s nothing to be nervous about and to simply carry on but I’ll be damned if I was able to do that (Kevin can attest to that, I’m sure). Nervous I was…

So to recap I had spent the last six month’s working and scheming to attract future business and everything at this point out of my hands. I was at the mercy of the interwebs. Then, thanks to people’s reception of our video, we did indeed receive a good number of hits. Ten days after launch… the phone rang.

— I don’t want to bore you with any longer a post so this will close Part 1. I’ll follow up with another post shortly.

So I found a sheet of black glass earlier just lying around in some of my storage and I took it in with me to work thinking it might be fun to play with. So that’s what we did. We grabbed a couple of pairs of shoes and some soccer balls and set up on the glass. These are two of the shots that resulted.

Afterwards I was thinking perhaps we should have done a behind the scenes video, not that this was a big shoot (which is why we didn’t think it was worthwhile at first) but after seeing the shots I realized there may be folks out there who’d like to see a clip. So if this IS something you guys would like more info on, let us know. Next time we do anything that might be even remotely interesting we’ll be sure to record the process and include you guys in on it.

So we’ve been working on a project for the last while. To me personally, this is a BIG project. Probably the largest thus far of my photography career, and it’s not even a photo-shoot. Along with the usual workload at 2D Photography Inc., we’ve been secretly (somewhat) working on this Rube Goldberg Machine for nearly six months give or take. Some of you may have guessed what we were up to from our teasers (Teaser, Teaser 2 for ?????, Third Teaser ie Teaser #3) but hopefully it was still a surprise.

It’s been a while since the idea came to me in late November, 2010. We started construction on it in January and while there have been a lot of delays, we’ve essentially just worked our butts off to get this thing shot. So without any further adieu.. here it is!!

Well, I hope you all enjoyed that! It was a fun and painful project. Certainly most of the people that were heavily involved (including myself) had a love-hate relationship with it. I’m sure there may be some questions regarding this video and I believe after we get some in a follow-up post will be written in order to address them. In the mean time, we did put together this other video briefly explaining the process.

Sufficed to say, this Rube Goldberg video could not have happened without the support of a few organizations. I’d like to say “Thank you” to:

Additionally, a fair number of people have had a hand in helping or bearing with both 2D Photography Inc. and myself with this project. For your help: building the damned thing, painting, repainting, and for your support and faith I’d like to thank the following people (I know I’m missing a few as well so I apologize, you know I love you) in no particular order other then alphabetical-by first name:

One last note. There’s a part of the machine that’s a bit hidden. The problem was that we really wanted to include a photo-booth in this video since they’re so cliche. The trick was that we just couldn’t think of a way to make: countdown, fire some flashes, eject an image and STILL look like a photo-booth. So most of the elements were inside. With that in mind, we’ve included this clip to help flash some light on what’s going on in there. (Description below)

Essentially there’s a whack of mousetraps in this thing. The lens case triggers the first trap and the attacking arm of the trap pulls down a string which goes up and over the ball on the top right, lifting up a block that’s holding the ball in place. From then on, each ball triggers another trap with simultaneously pushes the panel on the front of the booth (revealing the countdown numbers) and pulls the block on the row below letting loose the next ball. At the end, a crane of sorts lifts up another set of blocks releasing five balls: four marbles, and one ball bearing. The marbles land on a pocket wizard firing our flashes while the bearing goes for a longer trip to pull the pin on our image. Lastly the image falling lifts the lever below it, sending the golf ball on the outside away.

Thank you all for watching and reading. We hope you really enjoyed the clip and we’ll catch you all on our next adventure!

Well we’ve tried to hype up this mystery video for a little while now. Posted teasers and trailers (which you can see in these older posts: Teaser, Teaser 2 for ?????, Third Teaser ie Teaser #3) and now I’m happy to announce that the big day is finally here.

This sunday we’ll be launching our little project and I hope you all have an opportunity to see it. I guess that’s about all the info I can give, so until Sunday then, peeps!

You won’t notice much most likely, but our website has just undergone what I’d like to call a “massive makeover”. It seems like after I’m done making any changes to the site I’m always quite pleased with myself. Then after a while I begin to hate it. I’m not really sure if that’s going to be a continued trend or not. In hindsight I feel like every change it’s been given has always been for the better. I suppose it doesn’t matter too much so long as I’m happy with it now, right?

Personally, I always prefer to go it alone. For a number of reasons, though I’m not sure how to rank them, I just feel best when I’ve done something I’ve set out to do on my own steam. Afterwards… I tend to think that’s just stupid. I go back and I review my decisions to tough things out alone and I ask myself “What were you thinking, why didn’t you just get help??”. Doing things on your own is great but there are times when stepping up to the plate means knowing what you’re capable of and making the right choices at the right times.

I’m not sure if I feel like asking for help is cheating, or I’m just less proud of myself, but for whatever reason I’m quite stubborn when it comes to it. I end up putting a lot of pressure on myself and yeah I get the job done but afterwards I feel silly thinking there may have been a better way. I guess I also want to avoid taking advantage of the people around me. But that’s just silly in its own, right? Well either way – I’m going to try to put my ego aside a bit more often from now on and ask for help when a little aid can go a long way.

The reason this is on my mind is that we’re working on a project that I simply need help with. So I’ve had to ask for what help I can get and the truth is, help came. Some of it might not be the answer to all my ‘prayers’ but it doesn’t matter. Help arrives if you simply let it know it’s needed. I’m quite thankful to those that have helped and everyone seems to shrug it off, saying it’s “no big deal”. People say that, but I’m also starting to think it’s true because after some thought I realize… I say that, too! And I usually mean it.

I guess the point is if you’re as stubborn as I am about this sort of thing.. forget about it. You’re not taking advantage of people that would like to help you. In a way, you can’t. You may even be surprised or honoured or simply glad at the outcome of asking for help. So do what ever it takes to make yourself comfortable with it and ask for help. The measure of a man is not only his capacity for doing but also his capacity for knowing what he cannot do… at least without help ;).